Hero Remakes: Winter Wyvern

Courtesy of, dota4life.com

One of the newest additions to the game, this poet (yes, she’s a poet, of all things) found herself quickly becoming the favourite pick of most teams to fill the support role, and with very good reason.

Her two most powerful spells were, most likely, Cold Embrace and Winter’s Curse. The former provides a way to secure an allied Hero’s life (or her own). Imagine Dazzle’s Shallow Grave, but better; spell damage usually goes first, so her opponents found themselves unable to burst anyone down. The latter was brutal, to say the least. Best case scenario, it disabled a number of enemies and dealt great damage to one of them. Worst case scenario, it could simply serve like a Beastmaster’s Primal Roar. Hence, it was like Roar, but better!

Note that both of these skills have no cast animation.

Arctic Burn also makes a force to be reckoned with during the laning stage, while Splinter Blast can stop pushers on their tracks with its long range and low cooldown.

After a series of nerfs, our beloved developers decided Winter’s Curse was rather unfair on Beastmaster, and gave it a remake.

The idea now is a spell that forces enemies to burst down one of their own Heroes and to also provide some setup for Wyvern’s team. Since all affected Heroes are immune to damage from other sources for the duration, it may very well backfire and must be used correctly (alas, our poor pubs). After this, she wasn’t picked at all for some time. A few teams have tried her again, but she’s nowhere near her days of glory.

I believe they had the right idea when they changed that ult. It was extremely cheap, effective and it scaled as well as the opponents’ damage output. Using it on to force the enemies on each other was a luxury, since the low cooldown allowed for solo pickoffs as well.

Now, it can still be pretty strong, but it has its own unique use. The numbers can still change accordingly to make the concept work.